After the recent.. turmoil.. I've been seeing a lot of headers in groups that SB uses with what look like encrypted or obfuscated names / filenames. Does anyone have any insight into how to... unobfuscate these headers?

I'm looking at things like: Qqaoqoihn-556959842-201212111728 - based on the group in which it appears and the file size I assume it would be.. pertinent - I also assume that it's easily decode-able because if not what would be the point. I just can't seem to figure it out on my own.

Any help would be appreciated. I've tried to avoid certain keywords and I think anyone responding should as well. Shifting trends look like it will be necessary to decode these somehow going forward...

Well, yes - they relate to .nzb files. The regex isn't particularly difficult - the last segment is date+time - dropping them won't be difficult. But in the end it looks like it will be necessary to decode them, not drop them...

quechua wrote:After the recent.. turmoil.. I've been seeing a lot of headers in groups that SB uses with what look like encrypted or obfuscated names / filenames. Does anyone have any insight into how to... unobfuscate these headers?

Obfuscated headers are long overdue and will only become more prolific, and no, if it was easy to decode them on face value then it would be easy for the copyright trolls too. The wagons are circling and the key to the scrambled names are only going to be found in closed private systems ie forums, irc, etc

The common misconception among chicken little & friends is that header indexing should become decentralized and everyone will run their own newznab and problem solved. Wrong. Its header naming that needed to become decentralized and that's what you see happening.

Now instead of copyright trolls having nice neat lists with all their targets in plaintext and no need to ever examine the contents they get to search for a needle in a haystack. The casual 1-click Usenet pirates that just want too steal TV and don't care about learning anything will slowly migrate back to p2p where they belong as this system increases in complexity moving forward and the barrier to entry is raised.

One of the most insight posts I have read in some time. The barrier to entry had gotten ridiculously low and the copyright trolls just started going nuts.

They realize they are never going to stop piracy, they just want to make it difficult enough for the average joe to give up and go back to spending a lot of the $ with their cable/satellite/streaming provider for a shitty half assed service.

I for one am glad with this trend towards obfuscated headers.

mvd wrote:

quechua wrote:After the recent.. turmoil.. I've been seeing a lot of headers in groups that SB uses with what look like encrypted or obfuscated names / filenames. Does anyone have any insight into how to... unobfuscate these headers?

Obfuscated headers are long overdue and will only become more prolific, and no, if it was easy to decode them on face value then it would be easy for the copyright trolls too. The wagons are circling and the key to the scrambled names are only going to be found in closed private systems ie forums, irc, etc

The common misconception among chicken little & friends is that header indexing should become decentralized and everyone will run their own newznab and problem solved. Wrong. Its header naming that needed to become decentralized and that's what you see happening.

Now instead of copyright trolls having nice neat lists with all their targets in plaintext and no need to ever examine the contents they get to search for a needle in a haystack. The casual 1-click Usenet pirates that just want too steal TV and don't care about learning anything will slowly migrate back to p2p where they belong as this system increases in complexity moving forward and the barrier to entry is raised.

rascalli wrote:Looks like some sites will start making their own names & post on the forums what show/movie it is .. this whay it is more difficult to be taken down

What would be nice, is a system where you get a key from a private index community that translates the real name of the show with the scrambled header name. Then you plug this key into SB and it will go get the files for you. The issue at that point is keeping the keys out of the hands of unfriendly individuals. The upside is, at a moments notice, these keys can be changed.

Perhaps even take it a step further, the file is encrypted and needs the same key to decrypt the rar.

Something like XEM will solve the problem of translating it. The issue will be preventing copyright enforcement from using a database like that for their own purposes. Seven friends have already canceled Astraweb subscriptions over the automated DMCA processing so there will be consequences for providers doing just that.